We had just emailed the link to our interview discussing the ‘real’ history of Afghanistan on Sibel Edmond’s boilingfrogspost.  As soon as it was emailed a Verizon response spit back immediately with a notice declaring the email we had just sent was spam.   When the culprit turned out to be our friend Sibel’s website we called Verizon to clear up the problem. This was clearly not spam and should be easily reinstated, we thought. While a very chatty employee attempted and failed to fix our problem, we innocently asked how can we get this address back in business. That is when the real fun began. According to the laws of Verizon Central, once you’ve been labeled spam, there is only one course of action and it goes like this:

1. Verizon uses an unnamed third party who decides what is spam.

2. This unnamed third party also reviews complaints like ours.

3. We were told to send the “offending” email to spamdetector.update@verizon.net.

4. The unnamed third party would make a secret decision within 24 hours.

5. If the unnamed third party decides it is spam, regardless of our complaint we will not hear back.

That’s it. There is no recourse to challenge the decision. There isn’t even a confirmation that the email we sent to this third party was received at all.  Of course, after 24 hours we still couldn’t send out an email containing the link. Read more ?

Can’t Touch this…

On a beautiful sunny spring afternoon in 2006, I was sitting outside in the deck area of a neighborhood café in Alexandria with a friend who is a well-known journalist and an accomplished writer, for whom I happen to have the utmost respect. We were discussing the topical ‘Afghanistan & Terror Financing’ issue. Based on well-established trust between us my friend felt comfortable and open in sharing some ‘significant’ tidbits gathered from ‘credible’ sources within the CIA and DIA, and from British Intelligence officers. As I listened, the extent of credible information and documented incriminating evidence gathered excited me to the point where I had to stop this friend to ask:

‘When are you going to have this published?!’

The response was: ‘This was not the main topic I was investigating for my work. These ‘tidbits’ came to me as an ‘inevitable attachment’ due to relevancy…’

I had to stop the conversation again: ‘So? This is explosive. Even bigger than the main topic you’ve been chasing for the last year or so. No one has ever reported this, so you’ll be the first.’

My friend shook her/his head and said: ‘No one has done it because this topic is considered a ‘career ender.’ You know what happens to naïve reporters who actually try to get into this area, don’t you?’

Amazed by this line of reasoning and unable to really process it all I pressed harder: ‘What are you really afraid of?! Government interference? Classification?’
The answer that followed was even more amazing to me – due to my own naivety back then.

‘Government is the least of my worries. It’s the industry – the media. They go after anyone who dares touch this area – CIA, narcotics and terrorism. They will attack, label, and marginalize you, and before you know it your career as a reporter is over. For good.’

That day and in the days that followed I spent hours upon hours researching the topic; this ‘forbidden zone.’ I studied several cases where reporting on government-narcotics relationships, even though obtained and reported based on thoroughly documented credible sources and witnesses, had proven to be ‘career suicide.’ I met with several veteran DEA agents who presented me with even more cases and unreported criminal deeds, buried in the same journalistic ‘forbidden zone’ in the U.S. press. In the months and years that followed I paid much closer attention to reporting on current topics that skirt upon this forbidden area, and in my own time I analyzed and dissected these reports based on my own research and on information received from intelligence sources who are friends and members of my organization. And since I’ve been covering the U.S. MSM topic in ‘Dissecting the Mainstream Media’ series, I am going to present you with a few cases, reports, and analyses, and have your thoughts and views on this ‘Forbidden Apple of the U.S. Press.’

***

Gary Webb

In Part 3 of my ‘Dissecting the MSM’ series I discussed Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance series and its consequences in detail, so I won’t repeat the details here. If you haven’t read it I strongly encourage you to go back and do so. In 1996, after publishing his three-part investigative series, “Dark Alliance,” a thoroughly documented and diligently sourced story, he was attacked, ostracized, and pushed out of the media circle by his colleagues in the mainstream media. Despite the damning information contained in the content of the CIA IG Report, the corroborating findings of the DOJ IG Report, various congressional hearings and investigations filled with direct or indirect admissions, the MSM never eased up on its attacks and criticism of Webb’s report, until they successfully ended his career.

In a well-executed piece written by Barbara Osborn she sites the following exchange which took place between Post Dark Alliance Gary Webb and his supportive colleague Robert Parry:

“…Gary Webb didn’t know what was at risk. When he first spoke with Bob Parry–the Associated Press reporter who, along with Brian Barger, broke the Contragate and Contra/drug stories–Webb thought Parry was being “overly cautious.” “I thought he was being kind of foolish,” Webb recalled, when Parry asked him: “Are you sure you want to ruin your career?”

Unfortunately Parry proved to be the ‘realist.’ He was proven right. After all, he had gone through a rough journey of his own during and after his solid reporting on Iran Contra – for taking a bite off the ‘forbidden apple’ of the U.S. mainstream media.

***

Robert Parry

More or less a decade earlier another major case involving a direct government and narcotics relationship had emerged. In 1985, Robert Parry as an AP reporter teamed up with Brian Berger and broke the Iran Contra Affair. He later exposed Oliver North’s involvement in the scandal while reporting for Newsweek. For his impeccable investigative journalism he won a Polk Award, and became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

You would think a reporter with Parry’s credentials and solid track record would be revered and fought over by publishers in the U.S. mainstream media, no? Not so fast. First, this is what happened at the Associated Press where Parry broke the Contra scandal:

In late 1985, Parry teamed up with another reporter to report on a detailed and documented expose of drug-trafficking involving the Nicaraguan Contras. However, the AP editors blocked the story. Later Parry found out that his boss was regularly in touch with Oliver North and that he was conferring with him on a regular basis. Parry left the Associated Press.

And let’s read Parry’s own words gathered from an interview he gave on what took place at Newsweek:

,“As for my hiring at Newsweek, I think it resulted from how poorly the magazine had done on the scandal to that point. That said, Newsweek never liked the story and wanted it put to rest as soon as possible. Editor Maynard Parker was very sympathetic to the neoconservatives and became my nemesis. Evan felt that my presence so angered Parker that I had become an obstacle for Evan’s plans for the Washington bureau.”

Here is more:

“Though my finished article contained new information about the CIA’s relationship with Manuel Contreras, Chile’s intelligence chief and a key Letelier murder suspect, Maynard Parker and other Newsweek editors killed the story. I was told that Parker made some disparaging comment about me being “out to get” Bush.”

Of course, once again putting integrity in journalism first, Parry left Newsweek in 1990.

The Contra Scandal, especially the related Government-Narcotics relationship, was treated as an absolute ‘Forbidden Apple’ by the MSM. Webb and Parry were not the only ones; there were others. Here is another example involving reporter Ray Bonner and the New York Times – cited by Parry during an interview:

,“There were a number of journalists in the field in Central America, who were doing courageous work, people like Ray Bonner of the New York Times, who had been digging into the human rights problems in El Salvador, in particular. And he was—his career was very badly damaged, and he was made a sort of an example of what happens to you if you go into these areas too aggressively. Some reporters said that they were warned off from going after the North story, because that was seen as a career-ender.”

And of course Time Magazine as always, as an inseparable member of the MSM gang, followed the same trend:

“In the fall of 1987, Time assigned a staff reporter to assemble any evidence that the Oliver North network supplying guns to the Contras was also bringing cocaine into the U.S. The reporter found serious evidence, and wrote it up. As the former Time reporter explained to Extra!, after the article was written and rewritten, finally, a senior editor told the reporter to give up on the story. “The senior editor leveled with me,” the reporter told Extra!. “His words were: Time is institutionally behind the Contras. If this story were about the Sandinistas and drugs, you’d have no trouble getting it in the magazine.’”

Here is a punchy and so very factual quote from Robert Parry:

“It used to be that you were admired if you took on a tough story. Now you’re portrayed as a nut.”

That’s right. Thanks to the U.S. MSM even today many don’t know the facts involving the Contra Affair. Despite numerous reports, congressional investigations and statements, and tons of proven evidence, some people still consider the Iran Contra scandal a conspiracy theory or mere allegations, and those who had dared to touch it as ‘nuts.’ They owe their ignorance to the mainstream media.

The Walsh Report, the Independent Counsel for the Iran Contra Scandal, began it’s conclusion with this paragraph:

“The underlying facts of Iran/contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President’s willful activities.”

The establishment did not have to concern itself with reports such as the Walsh Report or others produced by various IGs and Congress. These reports, the surfacing of facts exposing our Government’s direct hand in narcotics and illegal arms trade, did not matter a bit. Neither did they have to pay much attention to a handful of true investigative journalists who were determined and capable of informing the masses with their reporting. Of course not. Their extension, the United States Press, made certain that any concerns would be taken care of, thus the ‘real’ stories were quashed and blacked out, and those who dared to touch them were quickly attacked, labeled, marginalized, and ‘taken out.’

***

KLA, Narcotics, and the U.S. MSM

Remember our military intervention in Kosovo during 1998-1999 in order to stop what was referred to as ‘ethnic cleansing’? Our main ally, partner, over there was the Kosovo Liberation Army, a Kosovar Albanian guerilla group which sought the independence of Kosovo from Yugoslavia in the 90s. Up until 1998 the U.S. regarded the KLA as a terrorist group. Then, before the actual NATO-U.S. military intervention, while preparing for that ‘intervention,’ as U.S. Intelligence started establishing its intimate relationship with the KLA in the background, KLA’a terrorist label came off the U.S. government list. In effect our government ‘de-terroristed’ the KLA and cultivated ‘mutually beneficial’ diplomatic relations with KLA leaders.

Here are some excerpts from one of the very few articles printed by the U.S. MSM mentioning this, and ironically it is from the Washington Times, in May 1999:

“Last year, while State Department officials labeled the KLA a terrorist organization, saying it bankrolled its operations with proceeds from the heroin trade and from loans from known terrorists like bin Laden, the department listed the group as an “insurgency” organization in its official reports. The officials charged that the KLA used terrorist tactics to assault Serbian and ethnic Albanian civilians in a campaign to achieve independence.”

James Bissett, Former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania, wrote the following:

“…as early as 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency assisted by the British Special Armed Services were arming and training Kosovo Liberation Army members in Albania to foment armed rebellion in Kosovo. The hope was that with Kosovo in flames NATO could intervene …”

Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, published extensively sourced and documented analyses of KLA as a gangster and terrorist entity, and its close ties to the CIA. The following except refers to what followed the State Department’s ‘de-terrorization’ of KLA:

“While KLA leaders were shaking hands with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at Rambouillet, Europol (the European Police Organization based in the Hague) was “preparing a report for European interior and justice ministers on a connection between the KLA and Albanian drug gangs.”

Chossudovsky provides report after report from the DEA and Europol, Germany’s Federal Criminal Agency and reports from Belgrade, establishing KLA as a high profile global narcotics and money laundering cartel:

“The proceeds of the narcotics trade has enabled the KLA to rapidly develop a force of some 30,000 men. More recently, the KLA has acquired more sophisticated weaponry including anti-aircraft and anti-armor rockets. According to Belgrade, some of the funds have come directly from the CIA “funneled through a so-called “Government of Kosovo” based in Geneva, Switzerland. Its Washington office employs the public-relations firm of Ruder Finn–notorious for its slanders of the Belgrade government”.”

“75% of the heroin entering Western Europe is from Turkey. And a large part of drug shipments originating in Turkey transits through the Balkans. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), “it is estimated that 4-6 metric tons of heroin leave each month from Turkey having [through the Balkans] as destination Western Europe.” A recent intelligence report by Germany’s Federal Criminal Agency suggests that: “Ethnic Albanians are now the most prominent group in the distribution of heroin in Western consumer countries.”

He then provides an excellent overview for this entire picture:

“Remember Oliver North and the Contras? The pattern in Kosovo is similar to other CIA covert operations in Central America, Haiti and Afghanistan where “freedom fighters” were financed through the laundering of drug money. Since the onslaught of the Cold War, Western intelligence agencies have developed a complex relationship to the illegal narcotics trade. In case after case, drug money laundered in the international banking system has financed covert operations.”

Here is an explosive article exposing the relationship between the CIA and the KLA before the NATO bombing. Not only that, the article exposes a very familiar figure: William Walker, the head of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to monitor the ceasefire in Kosovo in 1998-1999. Walker was nominated by Madeleine Albright, American Secretary of State. Guess what? A decade earlier, in 1988, Mr. Walker was the American Ambassador to El Salvador when Washington was helping the government there suppress leftist rebels, ‘while supporting the contra guerrillas’ against the government in Nicaragua. Coincidence? Not. This is the same Walker who served as Elliott Abrams’ Deputy Assistant Secretary for ‘Central American Affairs’ and accompanied him to all those Contra related meetings. During the investigation of the Iran-Contra Affair several felony charges were brought against Abrams by the special prosecutor, but he was not indicted because he entered into a plea agreement, had a conviction without imprisonment, and eventually was pardoned by President Bush.

Now back to the article for a few excerpts:

“AMERICAN intelligence agents have admitted they helped to train the Kosovo Liberation Army before Nato’s bombing of Yugoslavia . The disclosure angered some European diplomats, who said this had undermined moves for a political solution to the conflict between Serbs and Albanians. Central Intelligence Agency officers were ceasefire monitors in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, developing ties with the KLA and giving American military training manuals and field advice on fighting the Yugoslav army and Serbian police.”

And this on William Walker:

“Walker, who was nominated by Madeleine Albright, the American secretary of state, was intensely disliked by Belgrade… Some European diplomats in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, concluded from Walker ’s background that he was inextricably linked with the CIA. The picture was muddied by the continued separation of American “diplomatic observers” from the mission. The CIA sources who have now broken their silence say the diplomatic observers were more closely connected to the agency.”

“Several Americans who were directly involved in CIA activities or close to them have spoken to the makers of Moral Combat, a documentary to be broadcast on BBC2 tonight, and to The Sunday Times about their clandestine roles. Walker dismissed suggestions that he had wanted war in Kosovo, but admitted the CIA was almost certainly involved in the countdown to airstrikes.”

And here is the real punch line on this entire article: This article, this news, was not published in the U.S. MSM. This was reported by the Sunday Times in March 2000. These facts, revelations, and scandalous ties were never truly touched by the U.S. MSM. There was an ‘action alert’ issued by FAIR in 1999 on Time Magazine’s censorship of the established facts and evidence on the ‘Real’ KLA, under the title ‘Time Magazine Ignores KLA Drug Charges’ and subtitle ‘Are editors following Contra tradition?’:

“Time magazine’s May 17 issue ran a feature on the funding of the Kosovo Liberation Army, titled “A Fighting Chance,” suggesting that the KLA is sustained by donations from ethnic Albanians outside of Kosovo. The article reports that the Republic of Kosova Fund holds “more than $33 million” in a bank in Albania, yet in a graphic titled “How the KLA Gets Its Money,” Time cheerfully reports that the KLA gets its money from “fund raisers, mailings and other sources.” What “other sources”? Bake sales? Time doesn’t say.”

“Fortunately, there has been some investigation into the question. The London Times on March 24 cited an intelligence report that indicated as much as half of the funding for the KLA’s guerrilla war comes from drug proceeds. And the San Francisco Chronicle on May 5 reported that European and U.S. law enforcement groups see officers of the KLA as “a major force in international organized crime, moving staggering amounts of narcotics through an underworld network that reaches into the heart of Europe.””

Here is how FAIR appropriately questioned Time’s motives and drew an even more appropriate parallel to show the ‘real’ reason:

“Why didn’t Time mention the ongoing international investigations of the KLA’s suspected role in the heroin trade? A look back at Time’s Iran-Contra coverage sheds some light.”

“In a 1987 investigation into allegations of drug-smuggling by the Nicaraguan Contras, Time staff writer Laurence Zuckerman found serious evidence of Contra-cocaine links, but his story was never run. Why not? A senior editor acknowledged to Zuckerman: “Time is institutionally behind the contras. If this story were about the Sandinistas and drugs, you’d have no trouble getting it in the magazine.””

Pretty hard-hitting piece, right? Can anyone question its validity? I certainly can’t see how. One more time the U.S. MSM showed it’s claws when it came to their ‘forbidden apple,’ – CIA and its narcotics and laundering deeds…

***

Afghanistan & Heroin: The journey from Freedom Fighters to Fanatic Villains

I invite anyone who is interested in understanding the axis of U.S. Government, mainstream media, and our foreign policy involving unholy alliances to look at the last three decades of U.S. media coverage of Afghanistan’s Taliban-Al Qaeda, previously known and promoted as ‘Afghan Freedom Fighters’ and the Mujahidin.
In the 1980s the U.S. government supported the Afghan resistance forces, the Mujahidin, today known as Taliban and Al Qaeda, in the fight against the Soviet occupation. The CIA worked through Pakistan military intelligence (ISS) and worked with these guerilla groups who were close to the ISS.

In his well-researched book, The Politics of Heroin, Professor Alfred McCoy documents the parallel increase in Heroin production in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the 1980s when the U.S. Government collaborated and supported the Mujahidin directly and indirectly. While in 1979 Pakistan had a small and local opium trade and produced no heroin, by 1981, according to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith, Pakistan emerged as the world’s leading supplier of heroin, became the supplier of nearly 60% of U.S. heroin supply, and took over major sections of the market in Europe.

“Who were the manufacturers? They were all either military factions connected with Pakistan intelligence, CIA allies, or Afghan resistance groups connected with the CIA and Pakistan intelligence. In May of 1990, ten years after this began, the Washington Post finally ran a front page story saying high U.S. officials admit that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar [leader of the Hezbi-i Islami guerilla group], and other leaders of the Afghan resistance are leading heroin manufacturers. This had been known for years, reported in the Pakistan press, indeed in 1980 reported in McClean’s magazine. In fact in 1980 a White House narcotics advisor, Dr. David Musto of Yale University, went on the record demanding that we not ally with Afghan guerilla groups that were involved in narcotics.”

McCoy also documents interesting phenomena involving the DEA operations and actions (or inaction) in Afghanistan during the 80s:

“During the 1980’s from the time that heroin trade started, there were 17 DEA agents based in Pakistan. They neither made nor participated in any major seizures or arrests. At a time when other police forces, particularly Scandinavian forces, made some major seizures and brought down a very major syndicate connected with former president Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan.”

In an excellent article published by FAIR David Gibbs provides the following documented facts and analyses:

“Despite CIA denials of any direct Agency support for Bin Laden’s activities, a considerable body of circumstantial evidence suggests the contrary. During the 1980s, Bin Laden’s activities in Afghanistan closely paralleled those of the CIA. Bin Laden held accounts in the Bank for Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the bank the CIA used to finance its own covert actions (London Daily Telegraph, 9/27/01). Bin Laden worked especially closely with Hekmatyar–the CIA’s favored Mujahiddin commander (The Economist, 9/15/01). In 1989, the U.S. shipped high-powered sniper rifles to a Mujahiddin faction that included bin Laden, according to a former bin Laden aide (AP, 10/16/01).”

Now let’s go back and search U.S. press coverage of Afghanistan’s ‘Freedom Fighters’ during the 80s and try to find any coverage related to these U.S. backed and supported operations’ intersection with the global narcotics trade. Are there any? I’m afraid we know the answer to this question. Here is further coverage based on the report by FAIR:

“The press coverage of this era was overwhelmingly positive, even glowing, with regard to the guerrillas’ conduct in Afghanistan. Their unsavory features were downplayed or omitted altogether. While some newspapers favored some restraint in the degree of U.S. military support for the Mujahiddin (notably the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post) and others (like the Wall Street Journal) favored a more open-ended policy, these differences were only matters of degree. Virtually all papers favored some amount of U.S. military support; and there was near unanimous agreement that the guerrillas were “heroic,” “courageous” and above all “freedom fighters.””

“According to the L.A. Times (6/23/86): “The Afghan guerrillas have earned the admiration of the American people for their courageous struggle…. The rebels deserve unstinting American political support and, within the limits of prudence, military hardware.””

And here the axis of U.S. Government-U.S. Press- and the information spin or black-out:

“Another problem was direct manipulation of reporting by the U.S. government, which was supporting the Mujahiddin guerrillas during both the Carter and Reagan administrations. (Indeed, we now know that U.S. aid to the Mujahiddin was secretly begun in July 1979, six months before the Soviets invaded–International Politics, 6/00.) This press manipulation began early in the conflict. In January 1980, the New York Times (1/26/80) reported that the State Department had “relaxed” its accuracy code for reporting information on Afghanistan. As a result, the Carter administration generated “accounts suggesting Soviet actions for which the administration itself has no solid foundation.””

I am tempted to continue, keep going, and cover this same trend in a more current context, but I’ll limit myself to only highlights since this piece is already longer than what I intended it to be.

Afghanistan’s $40-50 billion worth of poppy production today is a gigantic leap from it’s approximately $5-10 billion before our invasion after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Similar to cases shown above our media’s selective coverage has been limiting it’s reporting to a few hundred million dollars of this industry which directly involves the Afghan farmers and warlords. Yet, uniformly missing from the coverage is the remaining $40+ billion! Based on numerous reports publicized by Europol, UN, and even our own State Department, over 90% of this industry is operated, managed and carried out by ‘others.’ These ‘others’ happen to include Turkey, Pakistan, and Albania; currently none of them on our ‘terrorist’ or ‘axis of evil’ list, thus the censored coverage.

As we can see, the U.S. press censorship trend when it comes to Government-Narcotics relationships has been replicated over and over: Contra-Cocaine, Cold War era Afghanistan-Heroin, KLA-Heroin, Post 911 Afghanistan-Heroin. This trend goes above and beyond the usual censorship and/or spins regularly exercised by our media. They seem to have collectively designated U.S. Government-Narcotics-Terrorist relations and operations as a ‘Forbidden Apple.’ Moreover, they seem to have been successful in ensuring the marginalization and downfall of any of their colleagues who have been bold and brave enough to take a bite of it. As stated by my good journalist friend ‘…can’t touch this.’

Part 2- Pressure Points

‘Pressure’ is one of those buzzwords you hear in almost all discussions involving the mainstream media and related topics: Government Pressure, Corporate Pressure, Special Interest & Lobby Pressure, Management Pressure, Colleagues Pressure…It’s always pressure – whether its pressure placed directly on the reporter, editor, or on the board and or ownership…So how does it work? How much pressure? What methods are used? Of course, the answer largely depends on ‘who’ the pressure comes from (government or corporate or …), ‘who’ is the target of the pressure (is it the source, the reporter, etc.). For this post I am going to focus on what’s referred to as ‘government pressure,’ provide you with my take by providing context and case examples, and then let you bring in yours.

Just to make sure you understand – I don’t claim to be an expert, nor do I pretend to have all the right answers. I am drawing upon eight years of direct first hand experience in dealing with the media on my case, four years of interaction with the MSM on and with our organization and our National Security Whistleblowers, and years of association and friendship with many journalists, authors, attorneys and experts active in the area of national security and civil liberties. I am still seeking answers and looking for solutions…


Flexing Muscles

Many cases of the government resorting to intimidation and harassment to prevent a story from coming out go unreported. I suppose this proves the effectiveness of this method. The flexing muscles method ranges from subtle threats to overt harassment. Many of these cases go unreported simply because the ‘pressure’ takes care of the ‘problem,’ and the ‘pressured’ party, either due to the shame of giving in or the fear of ‘further pressure,’ goes mum into their grave.

Here is a case where government agents’ muscle flexing through overt harassment did not go unreported because the target happened to be an investigative journalist with a proven track record and integrity; a rare breed, indeed:

Bill Conroy is an editor at the San Antonio Business Journal and a contributing journalist for Narco News and an author. The Reports Committee for Freedom of the Press was one of very few outlets to report the story of the government’s harassment and intimidation, targeting Conroy for his reporting of a leaked memo regarding the centralized database for tracking terrorists.

“A leaked memo from the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security sparked its officials to interview a writer last month in an attempt to discover his source for an article on the online news service Narco News.”

You can read the story and the leaked memo in question here. The memo divulged that DHS supervisory agents in the field were directed to alter terrorism related files without preserving their original versions. This is equivalent to shredding during the pre-computer era. Rather important, right? The government then sent some agents who apparently were instructed to teach Conroy a lesson or two:

“Two agents came to his home and spoke to his wife while Conroy was at work, and appeared at his office the next day. Conroy, an editor at the San Antonio Business Journal, contributes to Narco News. The agents spoke to Conroy as well as his boss at the Journal in an apparent attempt to intimidate him into revealing his source, said Ron Tonkin, Conroy’s attorney.”

So they send a couple of tough looking agents with a mission to intimidate and harass. Send the agents to the target reporter’s office and have them treat him as a ‘criminal suspect,’ and make sure his colleagues and boss are around to watch… Send them to his house, make sure the neighbors see the agents knock on his door and flash their badges, and instruct them to intimidate the spouse and or the children. You might be surprised to learn how many ‘targeted reporters’ actually do get ‘pressured’ out of reporting in cases like this; how many divulge sources; and how many pledge not to ever enter the ‘no no zone’ again. Bill Conroy didn’t, but Conroy is among a tiny group…

“Bill Conroy did not divulge the source of the leak in his article and refused to when agents visited his home and workplace on May 23 and 24, respectively, asking for his sources in the department.”

And guess what? In the end, they couldn’t do anything to him. Shouldn’t this be a lesson to reporters who follow a different path?

“Although the agents reportedly mentioned speaking to the U.S. attorney, implying they might obtain a subpoena for the information, no such order has been issued. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the western district of Texas declined comment. Calls to the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Professional Responsibility were not returned.”

Intimidation can also come in the form of a legal bluff. This approach seems to be gaining popularity since the September 11 attacks. The government can, and has been, using ‘National Security’ to declare many embarrassing or incriminating stories ‘classified.’ This allows them to flash their ‘we’ll take you to court’ card, and wait to see whether the target publication or reporter decides to ‘hold or fold or walk away.’

Let’s look at New York Times reporter James Risen’s case:

“A federal grand jury has issued a subpoena to a reporter of The New York Times, apparently to try to force him to reveal his confidential sources for a 2006 book on the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the reporter’s lawyers said Thursday.”

The same article emphasized that this trend is not isolated:

“Mr. Risen, who is based in Washington and specializes in intelligence issues, is the latest of several reporters to face subpoenas in leak investigations overseen by the Justice Department.”

How many reporters can afford the hefty legal fees to fight a case like this in court, when the government has at its disposal unlimited resources in dollars, legal maneuvering expertise, and manpower? Not many, I can assure you. Lucky lucky Risen! As for publications, also not many who’ll be willing. And unfortunately, not many reporters can easily secure pro-bono representation by a civil liberties organization with enough muscle to challenge the government. Thus many at an early stage, when ‘pressured’ by threats of legal action, give in and abandon a story yet to be written. Then add to this the recently revealed NSA targeting of journalists and you get the kind of pressure that may even eliminate the need for legal threats. Just the knowledge of being monitored is enough ‘pressure’ to dissuade many editors and reporters from pursuing‘radioactive’ cases in the first place.

The same government intimidation and threat tactics are also applied to ‘sources.’ Here is a brief account of my own experience:

In 2002, a few days before the airing of the CBS-60 Minutes segment on my case, my attorneys received a letter by fax from the Justice Department attorneys. The letter was to let us know that I would be pursued legally and severely if I went through with this interview. They strongly claimed that any information I was to disclose was being considered ‘classified.’ Of course, my attorneys knew better, and we didn’t bulge. And low and behold no ‘action’ ever came from the government following the airing of the segment. It was bluff, threat and intimidation; just that.

Not only did the government try to stop my appearance on the program, they took similar action with another FBI whistleblower, John Roberts, who also was interviewed for that same segment.


Source Pressures

Everyone knows ‘high-level government sources’ to reporters on politics and intelligence related matters is what the rolodex is in business. The net-worth, the value, of these reporters is frequently judged based on their ‘access.’ Sure; it makes sense. First, a reporter tries to make his/her way up the chain and establish the ‘relationship and trust’ necessary for this access. Next, and equally important, is to ‘maintain’ this relationship. This too makes sense, and is part of the job. Now, the question is, at what price? What are the things a reporter is willing to do, how far is he/she willing to go to ‘maintain’ his or her access?

Successful experienced journalists with a solid sense of ethics and integrity are good at ‘balancing’ when it comes to ‘source maintenance.’ This appears to be one of those disappearing qualities within the mainstream media. When the publication, the editors, lean towards, sorry, bend over, the government’s angle on stories, the reporters follow by compromising ‘a lot’ to keep and maintain their news/information ‘feeders’ within the government agencies.

I am going to provide you with another first-hand witnessed and documented incident. The only reason I am not naming ‘the well-known reporter & publication’ is to protect the source who obtained and passed on the incriminating documented evidence – the communication that occurred in writing between him and this particular ‘reporter.’

The individual who dealt with the congressional and press side of my case during the early stages of my whistleblowing journey wrote an e-mail to a well-known and well-placed journalist, saying, ‘Man, I can’t believe you guys did not cover this!!! Ashcroft comes out and invokes the State Secrets Privilege, first time ever asserted by the Bush administration, and you don’t write about it?! What the hell, man?! What’s the deal? I sent you the press release and attached a bunch of documents on that e-mail…’

Here is the response from that well-known journalist, and stupidly enough in writing: ‘I was going to call you. A few months ago I finally got this big DOJ guy, I mean BIG! Our deal-exclusive. You can’t do better than that in Washington. Anyhow, he doesn’t want us to touch Edmonds’ story. Period. I am not going to piss off my source for some God Damn translator whistleblower…’

The reporter’s refusal to cover the story was irrational – the State Secrets Privilege invocation was first released through an official DOJ press release and other major publications ran with the news. So what does this tell you? To maintain high-level government sources well-known reporters cut deals like this: You be my man, and I and what I cover will be yours. Unfortunately, through several reporter friends I was given many more examples and was told ‘that’s the name of the game when it comes to covering politics and government in this city.’

Soft Pressures

I touched on this type of pressure in the previous piece and in my last op-ed, and the recent revelations on Harman-New York Times provides both the context and case example. The fact that the NSA, DOJ and whatever other agency can softly ask the editors and management of the New York Times to sit on a major story involving criminal government action against it’s own people for over a year, and the request be complied with. The fact that a Congresswoman has enough ‘ins and pull’ to dial the decision-makers’ number at the New York Times and ask them ‘as a favor’ to not publish a story. The fact that a LA Times editor dutifully reports to NSA its source’s disclosure on wiretapping and the AT&T, takes his marching orders, comes back, and kills the story.

You see what I mean? There are many, many ‘soft pressure’ cases out there.

As with the various theories on the factors contributing to MSM degradation, the pressure styles can also be applied in combination. While the Justice Department attorneys are ‘flexing muscles’ by threatening the information source with legal action, their Attorney General or Deputy or whomever can be making his ‘soft’ call to dissuade the editor from moving forward with the story, and their Special Agent in Charge of whatever department may be summoning his ‘pet reporter’ to ban him from working on this same target story.